Government By Spite

Thursday, September 3, 2026

Yesterday Jim Geraghty looked at the likelihood that should Dems take both houses in November, impeachment proceedings against Trump are inevitable.  Notably missing from the entire conversation is precisely what “high crime or misdemeanor” the President would be accused of – apparently it doesn’t matter.  They just have a mechanism to get the man out of office and they intend to use it.  Like the entire litigatory history on the East Wing/ballroom – it is about spite, not law.

From Geraghty:

…back on January 20, 2017 — Trump’s first day in office, in his first term — two progressive groups, Free Speech for People and RootsAction, launched a campaign calling for Trump’s impeachment….

Free Speech for People launched a new initiative — Impeach Trump Again — on January 20, 2025, the first day of Trump’s second term.

The mechanism of impeachment requires a criminal charge of some sort and yet efforts to use that mechanism happened before the man had any opportunity to actually commit a crime.  And so the law becomes subject to personal distaste for an individual and we revert to that which we founded the nation to overcome – a nation of men, not laws.

Like it or not – Donald J. Trump was duly elected President of The United States. Overturning an election, by any mechanism, should be done only with the deepest of considerations, the most thorough of deliberations, and under the most extreme of circumstances.  Moreover, the term Trump now serves came after every dirty trick in the book was thrown at him at the conclusion of his first term.  Trump’s second term is the greatest political comeback in the history of the nation – it is quite clearly and most unquestionably the will of the people.  How dare we even discuss undoing that will in any situation other than the most dire?!

Biden was left alone – in office – even after his incapacity for the job was openly and plainly demonstrated to the entire nation.  The circumstances certainly justified at least the consideration of his removal from office – and yet the subject never really came up.  Contrarily, Trump’s removal is under consideration before any notable circumstance has presented itself.  It would seem that the anti-Trump sentiment would do away with the very foundations of the nation for the sake of their spite.

And that is the most troubling aspect of all of this entire discussion – it represents the jettisoning of the rule of law.

That alone is sufficient reason to make sure the Senate stays in Republican hands.  A Trump impeachment does not merely change the officeholder – it pulls the keystone out of the arch of the nation.  It makes the collapse of the nation inevitable.